


Fun and games

by petulantetuk



Category: Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: M/M, Oliver's POV, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-08 03:42:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13449801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petulantetuk/pseuds/petulantetuk
Summary: "I gotta be the adult. I asked him to grow up. I tried to ask him to be the adult, to have some sense in him when I couldn’t. At the same time I asked him to grow up, to be brave and to fight for what he wanted. Me. He wanted me. He wants me."During their last night together, Oliver desperately wants to convince himself to do what's best for Elio.





	Fun and games

He’s going to be ok. He’s going to get over it. He’s seventeen, I’m not going to be the one. It’s impossible. He will meet someone better, and he’ll forget about me. Or, maybe not forget. Please, don’t forget. But. He’ll be over it. He’ll be fine.

I cannot compromise his life on some decision he’s made at seventeen. It’s not fair to him. 

I gotta be the adult. I asked him to grow up. I tried to ask him to be the adult, to have some sense in him when I couldn’t. At the same time I asked him to grow up, to be brave and to fight for what he wanted. Me. He wanted me. He wants me. 

But someday he won’t. I’m sure of it. He’ll go to college and he’ll meet a girl. Hell, he’ll meet lots of girls. He may even meet some boy. But that’ll be his decision. He’ll be a little older, he’ll experiment, or not, but it will be a trial-error. He may wanna be with a man after that. He’ll have a relationship with him, and it’ll kill me if I find out, but that would be better. Better than my feelings and my desires leading him to a more difficult life. I cannot be selfish with this. I’ve already been selfish for a lifetime.

I am twenty four and know what I want in life. And I want him. I want him so bad that sometimes I need to be alone to prepare myself for when I won’t have him. To think with some clarity, to make decisions like this one. To remind myself that even if I know what I want, he doesn’t. Doesn’t matter what he says, or how he feels. He’s not going to want this forever the way I do. He can’t.

And if I keep our promises, and I write to him and we see each other when he’s in college, I’ll see how he’ll regret this. Not this, maybe. That. Our relationship then. He needs his freedom to be eighteen, nineteen, twenty. He will resent me. He will look at me the way he did the morning after our first time, when he was hurt, when he was having second thoughts. That would kill me. It broke my heart the last time, I cannot allow for that to happen again. 

Fun and games. I told him it’s fun and games for him. I’m not sure if it is, but it still could be. He’ll look back in a few years and think about it that way. I also told him that I had not figured out what it was for me. It wasn’t true. I had by that time. I had before that night. That’s what scares me. Will I be strong enough? Adult enough? I cannot allow myself to be selfish this once. I knew that I would have to pay for it. This is how.

It’s not like I won’t have anything. I’ll have this. My memories. Monet’s Berm. I’ll have his scent with me, I won’t possibly forget it. I’ll have every moment, perfectly categorized in my mind. I’ll have every feeling, and I will go back to them every time I need remembering. And I won’t regret it because I’ll have this. 

I will move on, hopefully. But not really. Never really. Heart of hearts. That’s it for me.


End file.
